[airstrike]

Unfortunately, both low education for the general public and low quality of the public discourse exist by design.

The only possible way to remedy this is to maximize your own ability to exert power, possibly by becoming massively rich, and then hope it doesn't corrupt you enough along the way such that you can still enact good in the end.

[WarmWash]

The more I learn, and the more versed I become with society, the harder and harder it becomes to see what is "good" and what is "bad".

The most confident I ever was that I was "obviously correct" was when I was 20.

[inigyou]

Be careful. Some actors are deliberately muddying the waters of good and bad. For example, vaccines are pretty good, but some groups want you to be unsure if they're good or bad.

[Cyph0n]

Precisely. Bad actors desire complexity because it leads to indifference. The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy.

“Unions can be corrupt” or “You don’t need unions to get your voice heard” is the kind of rhetoric that leads to disinterest in unions over the years.

[jolmg]

It can go both ways. Bad actors can simplify because it leads to indifference, by way of generalizations. "black" = "bad", "illegal immigrant" = "gang member". It's how racism works.

> The “good” side therefore needs to fight that complexity with simplicity and empathy.

Empathy, yes. Simplicity doesn't normally lead to empathy; complexity does.

[Cyph0n]

But “Black = bad” is not a simple argument because you cannot make that argument without backing it with a bunch of convoluted nonsense (complexity). Likewise with illegal immigration.

Racism never was (and still isn’t) simple. There were entire scientific fields developed to justify racial hierarchy. Nazism was similar.

[jolmg]

black = bad is the generalization, not the argument. The argument tends to be to just look at the number of incarcerated black people. That's simple.

> you cannot make that argument without backing it with a bunch of convoluted nonsense (complexity).

Unfortunately, the one listening is the one that determines how much complexity you need. Some people are convinced more easily than others. In the end, people tend to believe what they want.

[miki123211]

I think this often tends to fall along political lines.

In my experience, the left tends to like simple stories ("we are poor and the capitalists are rich, so just take their money and give it to us", "if people love each other, they should be able to marry, no matter the gender"). The right tends to like complex explanations ("taking money from the rich destroys the incentive structure required for effective resource allocation", "gay marriage makes gay people happy, but destroy the Christian values on which the western society was build, and therefore may have unpredictable consequences").

Neither approach is right or wrong. The left tends to oversimplify and prioritize surface compassion above all else (the communism case), but sometimes the simple argument really is the right argument (the gay marriage case). The right tries to show off how smart and sophisticated their arguments are, and how "it's not that simple". Sometimes they get it right (such as in the communism case), but they very often try to find a "but actually" explanation where one is not warranted (the gay marriage case).

[jolmg]

It's probably more that one person understands their own views better than they do those of others, regardless of the particular views of each. Meaning, they perceive the other's views as simple and their own as complex.

A leftist can equally say that a rightist likes simple stories ("if the poor want to be rich, they should just apply themselves", "less developed countries are such because their race (DNA) results in inferior IQ"). The left tends to like complex explanations ("we don't live in a perfect meritocracy for one to just apply themselves. There's various complex societal issues preventing that stemming from racism, sexism, inherited trauma, classism, differing values from working-class cultures, etc. Some of it can be seen as maybe unintended but real covert oppression by the upper classes, which leads to a sense of societal responsibility instead of just simple surface compassion.", "Countries may be less developed because of a plethora of reasons, including historical events that lead to different issues and compounding effects, cultures that value other things over those that lead to personal economic growth (e.g. people that couldn't imagine leaving their aging parents to care for themselves or be left with strangers instead of personally becoming their caregivers), etc. Intelligence doesn't exist on a one-dimensional spectrum as measured by IQ. IQ itself probably doesn't only depend on DNA. It's possible your environment and personal history also influence it. If the belief comes from statistical reports on the average IQ by country, it's also possible it's due to brain drain from emigration.")

[Cyph0n]

Funnily enough, your comment introduces complexity into what I see as a fairly simple argument. Also, I love how you pulled communism out of nowhere. A centrist would nod along with every sentence :)

[inigyou]

I read that left-wing people are consistently found to be much more able to process conflicting ideas than right-wing people are.

[consensus1]

40 years of experience has taught me that absolutely no one is less able to process conflicting ideas than left wing people are, and it's not close.

[andrewflnr]

> Bad actors desire complexity because it leads to indifference.

This is an extremely dangerous idea without being counterbalanced by fact that reality is often complex and good actors want to be honest about it.

Bad actors desire confusion is closer to being accurate. But bad actors also often oversimplify to rouse people to some politically beneficial but ultimately harmful action.

[Cyph0n]

I get your point, but I think confusion requires complexity. Otherwise how would it be confusing?

[andrewflnr]

Motivated reasoning, especially by emotion or fear, especially when the simple answer is unpleasant. Missing information. Irrelevant information. Plain stupidity. Lots of ways to be confused about simple things.

[inigyou]

I think "unions are always good" is worse than "unions can be corrupt or good, here's how to push for good"

[defrost]

I hear "unions are always good" about as often as I hear "companies are your friend" ... rarely in both cases and of those times almost never as a sincere belief.

Peer Cyph0n is on the ball, save in the instances of the rarer and more extreme terminally corrupt unions - and even those mostly hold worker safety dear (albeit little else).

[Cyph0n]

I would say something like “unions are more often good than bad and without them your children would today probably be working a 996 schedule”.

[ragequittah]

This reads somewhat like the older I get the less morals I have. If you have a hard time seeing the wild amount of bad in the world right now you're probably profiting from it in some way.

[jolmg]

Or you lack perspective.

Also, it's not about not being able to see any bad, but some things that obviously seemed correct, stop seeming so obvious.

Reminds me of that clip where a man in some TV show gets slapped by the woman host and he slaps her back. Then a bunch of men from the audience come to beat him up. It's one thing to have the moral "never hit a woman" and "protect women", but if women abuse these views to mistreat and humiliate others without consequence, that doesn't seem right either.

It doesn't seem right for the men to have beat him up for defending himself. They thought they were being moral, but they weren't.

Sometimes moral views can require nuance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4akMaeZ0-k&t=58

[ragequittah]

That is a good example actually. The reason women are typically not as harshly criticized for hitting men is that they are almost certainly physically weaker. It's also the reason why men typically feel safe with a woman walking behind them in a dark alley while the other way around it's terrifying. That's not to say we shouldn't criticize the woman for hitting the man, just that men have the onus to show more restraint in such a situation.

Now for all we know the woman was physically stronger than the man in the instance you're speaking of (doubtful) and hitting her back wasn't that big a deal or even deserved. But as a societal norm we should be dissuading men from hitting women even if they're hit first otherwise you might often get a major injury in exchange for a minor sting. And it's a FAFO situation when you break these norms.

But I find it hard to see the nuance in much of the political nonsense going on right now (which is what I thought you were speaking of). Mass surveillance that doesn't seem to offer any security in return? Obviously bad. Things like measles, the screwworm, and cyclospora coming back due to political posturing or just plain ignorance? Obviously bad. Again I don't see how you could possibly be on the fence about a lot of the politics going on right now unless it's benefiting you in some way.

Not all politics mind you, I'm sure you can find some nuggets of good in there somewhere too. But if you're having a tough time determining the bad things currently as prices for everything are rising and the world is in constant turmoil I want whatever drugs you're taking.

[andrewflnr]

Speaking of perspective and nuance: violent self defense is justified to defend one's safety. But a slap by, let's be honest, a relatively physically weak person is not a credible threat to safety. It's just an insult.

On the other hand, physical abuse of women by men is much more common and dangerous, and there's a utilitarian argument that society should treat it more harshly. Not saying the guys beating up the other guy were moral, but it's easy to argue they were closer.

[Avicebron]

> Unfortunately, both low education for the general public and low quality of the public discourse exist by design.

Absolutely. Bread and circuses isn't a new idea.

>The only possible way to remedy this is to maximize your own ability to exert power, possibly by becoming massively rich, and then hope it doesn't corrupt you enough along the way such that you can still enact good in the end.

Points for the doing good in the end. But it's a rule in hell/serve in heaven issue, if you first need to create hell with your quest for power you have failed the objective of doing good in the end.

[voakbasda]

If you have a binary view, Good will always lose.

Evil can act Good, but Good cannot act Evil. Evil has that advantage over Good that cannot be matched.

This continuously plays out in our political systems. Good actors cannot fight the deluge of evil of their opponents, who are free to lie cheat and steal.

Good binds its own hands. For good to win, it must act with even greater evil. At which point, it becomes the very thing that it tried to defeat.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Evil can act Good, but Good cannot act Evil. Evil has that advantage over Good that cannot be matched.

The assumption here is that being Evil is advantageous. It's obviously advantageous to personal gain, but the relevant thing is whether it's advantageous to staying in power, and then the system you want to design is the one where it isn't.

Notice also that it isn't binary. You can make it harder to be Evil and then have less of it even if you never have none.

[Avicebron]

This is assuming a short game. Defection over cooperation dominates short games, but evil can't trust evil in longer play. And I would hope that the default desire is a long game..

[voakbasda]

For a variety of reasons, we no longer cultivate long term familial bonds or friendships, employment, or even product purchases. If you ask me, the world has increasingly become a series of short games that are being exploited by bad actors, and the result is an epic rise in distrust of just about everything and everyone.

[andrekandre]

  > For a variety of reasons, we no longer cultivate long term familial bonds or friendships, employment, or even product purchases. If you ask me, the world has increasingly become a series of short games that are being exploited by bad actors, and the result is an epic rise in distrust of just about everything and everyone.

we are motivated economically to get more more more, that means everything has to be productized, sold and reinvested faster and faster; this has the effect of making things more and more 'short games' as you put it... it effects our thinking night and day; gotta 'get mine' and 'quick wins' etc... when the whole society is arranged that way everything else starts to wane... just my observation anyway

[Waterluvian]

Tangent: I think this illuminates why I enjoy the “evil” route in many RPGs. My evil party doesn’t have to be moustache twirling. They can pick and choose their evil moments. But a good party feels more constrained.

Rarely a great RPG forces my good party to make difficult decisions.

[Forgeties79]

Funny enough Mass Effect: Andromeda, which I never finished for obvious reasons, actually had a few few moments with pretty thick gray areas where I had to really sit down and think about my decisions. It’s interesting looking back and recalling that mess as one of the only strong examples.

[sellmesoap]

My favorite was one of the KOTOR games where helping an NPC got you dark side points for taking the opportunity for the NPC to help themselves.

[inigyou]

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. But there's a third option, too: to die a nobody.